Kurd Locked in Solitary Cell Holds Key to Turkish Peace

By

Joe Parkinson and

Ayla Albayrak

Updated March 18, 2013 12:01 a.m. ET

ISTANBUL—Abdullah Ocalan has spent 14 years in solitary confinement in an island prison about 20 miles south of here, but he is negotiating a peace deal that could halt a bloody guerrilla war, upend Turkish politics and reverberate across the Middle East.

Mr. Ocalan, leader of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, has been imprisoned since his capture by Turkish Special Forces in 1999. His hair and mustache are whitened...